{ENTERED INTO THE 2022 PRIDE AWARDS}
When 2 girls who have never spoken to each other develop symptoms for COVID-19 while in school, they're put into the isolation room as they await someone to pick them up to take them for testing. Despite the dist...
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R: Good afternoon, Katie!
K: You too, Ryan. How are you?
R: Not too bad, and yourself?
K: Great. Can I just ask what we're doing here because I'm just a little bit lost.
R: Of course! Basically, what we're doing here is that I'll ask you a bunch of questions, then I'll just write all this down and we can take a look at this in 10 years and see how much has changed, how much has stayed, etcetera.
K: Sounds cool. I mean, if the planet holds out until 2031.
R: [laughs] I'm sure it will. Anyways, first question, an obvious one really. What's today's date?
K: February 15th, 2021.
R: How old are you?
K: I'm 16 and I'll be 17 on the 11th of March.
R: What's your favourite song?
K: Ooh, this is a tough one. I'd probably have to say Pluto Projector by Rex Orange County. No one can convince me otherwise about the fact that the end of that song is a masterpiece.
R: Wow. I don't know that one, I'm so old.
K: [laughs] No you're not, Ryan. If it makes you feel any better, my girlfriend often makes me feel like a fetus, the musicians she knows. Going back to before my granny was thought of, like.
R: [laughs] About your girlfriend, Zoë. The two of ye are just absolutely adorable, and yesterday was Valentine's Day. Did ye do anything?
K: Well, we didn't do like candlelit dinner shit or anything like that. I mean, we're 16 and that just isn't us, you know? I did cook a bunch of pizza and we got a couple cans of Monster which we had in the park, and then we stargazed on the roof last night. She also got me a teddy bear, the cutie.
R: Ah, that's precious! Young love.
K: Yep. We were supposed to go to Cork city and do whatever there, but obviously, we couldn't with this new lockdown, but we still had fun.
R: About the new lockdown, how are you finding it?
K: Easier than the last one, for sure. I'm in TY and I barely get any work, maybe only 1 assignment a day or so, but Zo is being loaded with work since she's repeating 3rd year. I often go over and help her because I have a lotof trauma from the last lockdown and the workload. It was insane, and hers is insane as well this time around. It's dumb, putting kids under that kind of pressure during a pandemic especially. That's the shit that drives people to suicide, like.
R: Do you feel students are overworked during times like this?
K: Oh, of course. I feel we're overworked in general. These are really the years where our mental health is most vulnerable. As much as schools love to claim they do, they really don't care about our mental health. If they did, they wouldn't assign us a whole bunch of work that's due for the next day.
